The invention relates to a vehicle seat, in particular a passenger seat for a bus, comprising a seat member, a backrest and a support structure for receiving forces which act on the vehicle seat.
There are known from the prior art vehicle seats, in particular motor vehicle seats, which have a backrest against which the vehicle occupant can lean with his back. In order to provide the necessary stability for the backrest of the known vehicle seats so that it can receive the forces acting on the vehicle seat in a reliable manner, support structures are generally integrated in the backrests. Such forces may, for example, be caused by an impact of a passenger seated behind on the backrest in accordance with the test provisions for buses, by passengers holding onto the seat or handrails which are secured thereto or by the seated passenger. Corresponding support structures may also be integrated in the seat member. The known support structures generally have a metal support frame with longitudinal carriers and lateral struts. An example of such a support structure is disclosed in DE 10 2009 035 405 A1.
The support structures mentioned above have the disadvantage that backrests in which such support structures have to be integrated are costly to produce, have a relatively high weight and the structural space available is accordingly limited.
In order to adjust the inclination of the backrest, an external pivot joint is fitted between the backrest and seat upholstery in such passenger seats. However, such pivot joints limit the spatial region which is available, in particular the knee freedom, for a person located behind the vehicle seat. Furthermore, seat structures which are located within the backrest or the seat carrier prevent pieces of equipment from being able to be subsequently mounted on the seat frame in a simple manner.
Another disadvantage is that an inclination adjustment of the backrest brings about an angular change, for example, of a table which is secured to the rear side of the backrest. In order to prevent this, solutions are known from the prior art which require an additional costly frame in order to decouple the table from the backrest.
DE 10 2006 049 001 B4 further discloses a seat device for an aircraft in which a seat device is arranged on a shell structure which acts at the same time as a closed storage space. However, the shell structure proposed leads to comparatively large dimensions of the seat device. However, in public service buses and coaches, the installation space available for a vehicle seat is not sufficient for such a shell construction. Such seat devices are therefore generally not suitable for installation in public service buses and coaches or significantly limit the space of the passengers sitting behind.